Total pages in book: 140
Estimated words: 132625 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 663(@200wpm)___ 531(@250wpm)___ 442(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 132625 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 663(@200wpm)___ 531(@250wpm)___ 442(@300wpm)
Someone’s holding me by the shoulders, saying my name, and I blink up to see Kendrick.
“Don’t you dare give up now,” he’s saying. “Come back to me, Slayer. You’re stronger than him.”
“What did I do?” Frantic, I look back and forth between Brie and Kendrick. Exhaustion hangs on every inch of my skin, willing me to close my eyes. To rest.
Kendrick’s grip tightens, like this alone can keep me in my body. “She’s back.”
“How do you know?” Finn asks. “It could be a trick.”
“I know,” Kendrick roars, the rage so heavy in his voice it rattles the windows.
One hand still clutched to her stomach, Brie reaches toward me with a smooth stone the size of her palm. “It has to be her,” she says. “This magic is tied to her life. She has to be the one to use the stone.”
“Release her,” Kendrick tells Finn. “She can’t try the spell herself with her hands pinned behind her back.”
“No.” I shake my head, trembling all over as I meet Finn’s silver eyes. They’re so much like Mordeus’s that I always avoid them, but I can’t risk that now. “Don’t release me,” I say. “We don’t know if he’ll be back.”
Finn’s eyes glaze over, and I realize the Enchanting Lady has her hold on him. He won’t disobey me.
“Thank you,” I whisper. Even words are hard. Whatever magic was in the wolpertinger’s blood, it’s gone now.
Kendrick shakes me gently, but I can’t take my eyes off my sister or the blood coating her hands. “Listen to me, Jas,” he says. “This is the Stone of Disenchantment. If you don’t want Mordeus to take over your body again, you have to get this ring off. It strengthens the connection between you and Mordeus and makes it easier for him to control you.”
I blink back up to him. Do I understand what he’s saying? That I could be rid of this ring? That I could be remembered again? That I could stop sleeping away the little that’s left of my life? “How?” Keeping myself upright is harder than ever.
You almost died, and this ring is holding you at death’s door.
“You have to ask Finn to free your hands so you can take the stone,” Kendrick says.
“Have you already tried this?” I look back and forth between him and Brie, ignoring Finn’s adoring, starry-eyed gaze, but I can see the answer in my sister’s desperate stare. “If it didn’t work for you, how do you know it will work for me?”
Kendrick strokes a thumb across my cheek, the touch so gentle it nearly brings tears to my eyes. “You have to try.”
“You have to want to be rid of the ring,” Abriella says, wincing as she takes one labored step toward me and then another. “You hold the stone and you ask it to free you of the magic.”
“I don’t want to hurt any of you.”
“Then it’s time to take off the ring,” Abriella says. She takes one more step, holding the stone before me.
“Finn,” I say, my voice cracking as I take in my sister’s bonded partner. “Pick up that dagger and toss it in the hall, then close the door.” He obeys. He’s fighting the ring’s magic, but I have him in my thrall. “In a few seconds, I’m going to ask you to release your hold on me. If I do anything to try to hurt Abriella, restrain me immediately.”
“If that’s what you want.”
“It is,” I promise. Tears prick the back of my nose. Finn is one of the strongest, most noble males I’ve had the honor of meeting. There should be no magic that takes away his will like this. I should never have sought out such a power, should never have given that witch what she needed to create it.
“You ready?” Kendrick asks.
What if it doesn’t work? What if Mordeus is in my mind, waiting for the right moment to strike again?
What if this is my only chance?
I give a jerky nod. “Release me, Finn.”
My wrists and hands fall free at my sides, and I reach for the stone. It’s slippery with her blood, but that only strengthens my resolve.
All eyes are on me as I grip it hard, feeling it pinch against the ring. “Free me of this ring.”
I can’t explain it, but I feel the moment it happens. I feel the magic loosen its grip—still there but more in my control than it has been in months.
I fumble to pull the ring from my finger and the stone slides from my hand and hits the floor with a thump.
When I pull the ring from my finger, it’s like being released from a tether. As if it was both reining me in and holding me up. I collapse.
When I open my eyes again, it doesn’t take the effort it did before. I’m back in my bedroom at the Midnight Palace. The curtains are drawn but a candle burns at my bedside and scatters flickering light across the room and onto Abriella’s face. She’s lounging in a chair in the corner, a book open against her chest as she stares out to the night sky.